


and here is nowhere

by lightly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightly/pseuds/lightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What did you do?”  The voice is a cold rush of noise that splashes against his face like it has a physical form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and here is nowhere

“What did you do?”

The voice is a cold rush of noise that splashes against his face like it has a physical form. For a teetering second, he thinks that maybe he can pull himself up and over that lip of consciousness that so far seems to have eluded him. But no, the half-awake, half-fuzzed confusion lingers, holding him down, pressing against every nerve until he thinks they might break.

It dawned on him then, that whatever was coming hadn’t even begun to start.

“What did you do?”

He thought he might recognize the voice, something out of a half-remembered nightmare. It was like the answer was right there, just seconds out of his reach. He wasn’t sure what it was the answer to, the answer to the question, the answer to how he was getting the fuck out of here, but it was there, burning in the back of his throat. Words that needed to get out, but he couldn’t find the coherency he needed to form those words into a workable, understandable sentence.

“What did you do?”

No one expects the Spanish inquisition, isn’t that how the saying goes?

The voice slapped him, or at least he thought it did. Something slapped him, hard – did he say that last bit out loud? He laughed, a faint, long drawn out giggle that bordered on hysteria because voices can’t hit people, they don’t have hands, how can you hit someone if you don’t have a hand.

Stupid.

“What did you do?”

It’s a simple question, he thinks, simple, well thought out and well presented. Being forced into darkness, left alone with a disembodied broken record that occasionally deals out static bursts of pain has a way of getting a guys attention. So a question given deserves an answer in return. Trouble is, it’s a kind of a sorta open ended question and he gets the impression that the voice wants its answer now now now.

There is a huff that could have been a sigh and a rush of cold air, actual air not metaphorical. Or at least he thinks its real air it’s hard for him to tell what anything is anymore. The darkness has a way of sucking at you, slowly bleeding you dry until you know that daylight, sunshine, even the artificial neon glow of that motel sign you last saw a few days ago, they are all just a figment of your imagination. They never existed, just like you don’t exist right now. What could exist in the dark?

 _When I was eight I killed the neighbour’s cat. Well it wasn’t really our neighbour; it’s hard to have a neighbour when you don’t have a home. But she was the closest thing to a neighbour since she was in the room next to ours and we stayed there for over a week which was the longest ever I think. So she counts as a neighbour, I guess. She wasn’t very neighbourly after I killed her cat, can’t really blame her though, but it’s not like I meant to, I didn’t want to, it just happened. Dean took the blame because he said it was his fault anyway because he gave me the knife and the knife slipped and the cat died and Dad was so pissed at me but Dean said it wasn’t my fault even though it was, I did it. I did that._

 

It was complete fiction of course, there was no neighbour, there was no cat. Well, there was, maybe. At some point he had to have had a neighbour who had a cat that died, but he didn’t kill it. Those were just words. Just words desperately blurted out to fill the silence, to answer a question that had no real answer. Silence was oppressive. Even all those times when he wanted Dean to be quiet he never actually wanted Dean to be quiet, because when Dean was quiet there was a bleak, hard, claustrophobic silence that crowded in on him. It clawed at him, kicked at him. It’s really hard to concentrate when the quiet is trying to tear you down.

And those words he used to bridge the silence weren’t even the first ones he thought of. He had a thousand lies stretched out in front of him; all he had to do was pick one. But his mind stumbled over the vowels and consonants that formed the basis and structure of what he would say. Funny how his brain seemed almost clear but there was a blockage at the mouth.

It was the silence. It was killing him.

And now here he is, here in a darkness so infinite that shadows are just a memory, and the silence is corporeal, it has more form than the nameless, faceless void that is talking to – at – him.

“What did you do?”

It’s like water torture. Just him and the voice and the dark and the quiet. ‘Cept there is no drip drip dripping of water to slowly drive him crazy or gouge a perfectly shaped hole in his skull. It’s just him and the voice and the dark and the quiet.

“What did you do?”

 _When I was 13 I had dreams about sucking off my brother. That’s a bad thing, right? I had all these thoughts and feelings that I had no idea what to do with and so I bottled them up and down and every which way but where they were supposed to go and I got closed off and angry. So then this guy at school called me a fag because I used to sneak looks at the other boys when we were in the locker rooms, that’s a bad thing too, right? I mean calling me a fag was a bad thing, but me looking at boys changing was a bad thing too and I shouldn’t have done that, but I did do that. I did that. So this kid calls me a fag and I get so mad that I want to punch him, but I can’t because Dean shows up then, picking me up from school and I have to go home. Or back to the motel which isn’t actually going home, but it kind of is because Dean’s there and Dean is my home._

 _The next day the kid that called me a fag says that Dean and I make a cute couple and “Did I have fun with my boyfriend last night.” So I kick the crap out of the kid, I kick and punch and beat until he’s nothing but a bloody pulp and Dad had to pull me out of school before I got my fool ass expelled, that’s what he said. So we left town and Dad hadn’t even finished his job yet, he had to drive a two hour round trip to get it done while he left me and Dean at another motel._

 _And I still wanted to suck Dean off. That’s a bad thing, I didn’t do it but I thought about it. I did that._

He was babbling now, he knew he was. The words didn’t mean anything, they were just an explosion of sound, jumbling and tumbling over each other, he even tripped over his own tongue in his hurry to get them out, get them said. Get something said. And now the words are out, set free into the darkness. Not a lie this time, just a secret. It’s funny, he thought he would be harder to break than this; he should have been harder to break. There had been no beating, no violence. The voice had hit him, but that had just been his imagination, voices don’t have hands to hit with, he’d already discussed this with himself. Stupid. Instead he had been left alone, in the dark – he’d always hated the dark – left with a question and his own guilt. Guilt was a mother fucking son of a bitch, wasn’t it? There is no bigger punishment that what you dole out onto yourself.

“What did you do?”

He didn’t know. How could he answer that? It could be any one of a million things he had done over the course of 24 years.

“What did you do?”

 _I let her die._

Who did he let die? You can’t save everyone, Dean always told him that and it was bullshit because they should try. He should try.

“What did you do?”

 _I killed her._

That wasn’t his fault either. Dean promised him it wasn’t his fault.

“What did you do?”

There were things that he wanted to say right then, let out all his secrets, let them out into the dark where they couldn’t hurt him or anyone else anymore. He wanted to just spill everything, anything that had some kind of meaning, let it go get it out there make the voice understand, ease the guilt and them maybe he could go home. Dean was home. Dean wasn’t here so this wherever he was, wasn’t home. He wanted to go home.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Sam said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s right.” The voice agreed. “You didn’t do anything.”

The voice was everyone now; it was Dad, screaming at him with a mouth made of fire. It was Jess, all alone, scared and waiting for him. It was Madison, vulnerable and lost as she choked on her own blood. It was Sue LeGrange, bloated, blue skinned and accusing. It was a hundred people whose names he’d forgotten but whose faces he saw every night when he closed his eyes. It was Dean. It was Dean.

“The world was at war, it was being torn to pieces and you didn’t do anything.”

Sam did something then.

Sam woke up.

 

ǀǀ

 

It was light when he opened his eyes. A small sliver of the approaching dawn filtered thought the crack in the motel curtain. It cast a scar shaped shadow on the bed he and Dean were sharing. The light touched Dean’s face, gently like a lovers caress, the shadows dancing across Dean’s skin as the curtains moved in a non existent breeze. Sam raised himself up and, propped up on one elbow in a position that bordered on painful, he watched Dean sleep. Dean looked so peaceful when he slept, he looked younger than he had any right to and sometimes Sam could have wept for an innocence they were both denied. Though he would never, ever, admit that to Dean.

“Wusa matter, ‘ammy.” Dean said softly, his voice caught somewhere between a sigh and whisper.

“Nothing.” Sam said, running his hand lightly over the curve of Dean’s arm. “Just a dream.”

Dean sat up, dragging the covers with him, and though it was threatening to be a sunny day, the morning held a chill that crawled over Sam’s exposed skin.

“The same one?”

Sam could only nod.

Dean smiled a sad, lazy smile and he settled back down next to and facing his brother, pulling the covers over the both of them. He pressed his body against Sam’s, kissing Sam’s collar bone, his throat, his lips.

“It’s going to be ok, Sam.” Dean said.

“When the time comes.” Sam began; Dean moved a hand to cover Sam’s mouth. Sam knew Dean had heard this before; they have the same conversation every time Sam has the dream. Sam just pushes Dean’s hand away. “Make me do something.” Sam asks. “Don’t let me do nothing.”

“I promise, Sammy.” Dean says the same thing every time. “It’s all going to be ok.”

 

FIN


End file.
